Don't go stealing my ideas, Grabianowski:

[io9.com]

Sir, we're stumped for ideas on who did this.

Why not just see it in your head.... STUPID!

Wesley Crusher - Starship Commander

Yeah, the psionic Traveler stuff would have to be dumped. Still, this sounds waaay more interesting than another retread of the same old characters and story lines that the franchise seems to have been mired in lately.

not a bad idea, but lose the Trek part.

This is literally one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Like the world really needs another medical/criminal/paranormal mystery of the week show.

This show is already better than Enterprise.

@moff: Dude! Actually, I don't think I ever read that thread. I was literally half-conscious from a fever, and the plot episode played out spontaneously in my mind. Were you all hopped up (er...down) on Nyquil when you thought of it, too?

He reads io9 does he? Maybe he can do a bit once in a while on the subject of teenage angst in space. How much time would a teenage boy spend in the holodeck? I would have lived there then required a few months of rehab on Vulcan.

@Ed Grabianowski: Oh, I was totally kidding! I bet we aren't even the first people who've thought of a series starring Wesley. In fact, I sometimes think maybe Wil has thought about it a few times himself. ;-)

If I recall right, I was hopped down on something. Let's just go ahead and say it was NyQuil.

Successful book series

SCE Starfleet Corps of Engineers

[resisting urge to plot out militant starfleet idea]

They stole my idea...... Although I thought of it more as an NCIS in space, since Starfleet is more like a military organization than a municipality.
Maybe next they can rip off my idea of a Time Trek show that follows one of those time traveling starfleet ships that kept popping into the Voyager show.

@moff: I'm certain someone has thought of this exact idea before. I'm just waiting for someone to post a link to the fan film they already made of it.
@B: Yup, I stole the title from NCIS.

What Who song will they use for this one if they combine with CSI and Star Trek?

This sounds like it would make a much better novel series than a tv show. I mean, how would this be different from The X Files, or Torchwood? Just the fact that it's set in the Star Trek universe? What's next? Star Trek: Turbolift Inspectors Unit?

Also, why must sci-fi (and especially Star Trek) slavishly follow the "one actor, one character" rule? I'm all for bringing Will Wheaton back to Star Trek, and I would even be happy to see a show based around him, but why can't they create a new character for him? Why should we have to retcon Weasley and all his demigod baggage just to bring back one actor?

The entire "Trek" franchise needs to die. It's poisoning the very concept of originality, polluting the minds of an entire generation of sci-fi fans. It's like a great malignant octopus from hell squatting on the collective imagination, driving out all competing concepts...

DIE "Star Trek" DIE!!!!!

Especially you, Wesley, you whiney effeminate pencil-neck...
Are Smart People always portrayed as social retards and sexual hermaphrodites? The biggest moron on the boat gets to boink all the green slave-girls he can get his hands on, but the guy with the 230 IQ is spanking the monkey in the holodeck...

@russdanger: Calm the fuck down, Beavis. Sci-fi has a larger profile in popular culture than it's ever had before, thanks in large part to kids who grew up watching TNG and the other spin-offs. Also, smart people is not actually capitalized, no matter how smart they are.

I'd like to see Borg spin-off series. What's more fun than following a band of merry hive-minders as they travel to strang new worlds and assimilate the people that live there? It could be called "Little Cube on the Spacetime Fabric." The show would focus on the existential issues that arise with Borganisms and their competition. The Federation will be assimilated, of course.

I miss Captain Pike. His wife was such a bitch to do that to him.

@russdanger:Are Smart People always portrayed as social retards and sexual hermaphrodites? The biggest moron on the boat gets to boink all the green slave-girls he can get his hands on, but the guy with the 230 IQ is spanking the monkey in the holodeck...

Actually, that's the most realistic aspect of the entire show.

I always wanted to see a 'Star Trek: The Last Generation' series, that followed the last of humanity as they began their final evolution into something like the Q. Wesley Crusher would be ideal for this in his Traveler incarnation.

As a side benefit, a Last Gen series would also give them a graceful way to end the franchise once and for all.

@russdanger:
I wouldn't worry about that. Benmurga did an amazing job of killing Star Trek and they didn't need outside help.

Considering that many shows have gone to gain a loyal following without following the beaten to death Trek "formula" sez a lot.

@moff:

Exactly my point, you Absorbed-into-the-Collective drone.
I'll capitalize whatever the fuck I want, you conformist tank-fetus.

That picture is .... Disturbing.

@StrangelyBrown:
Bwa-hahaha-ha..

Actually...uh, that's probably why it upsets me and my social-retardedness so much...

"Oh yeah, about that whole resigning from Starfleet and tripping around the universe with that space-hippie, The Traveler? One word: retcon."

Not necessary. At some point Wes came back to Starfleet. He's in full uniform in the deleted scenes for Nemesis.

Even better than the CSI/NCIS, add a Law & Order courtroom component. You could have Captain Crusher yelling "Temporal anomalies! You can't handle the temporal anomalies!"

I still think it's too soon for another Trek series. 5 more years, maybe. 10 would be better still. Let the next generation of writers and directors tackle it. Also, I'd like any reboots to pull a TNG and move the Trek universe forward by a few decades. Should help to freshen it up again with a totally new cast and background.

Hell, I'd watch it.

@russdanger: I apologize for the capitalization note. It was rude and unnecessary and beneath both of us. I just got a little Worfed out there, is all.

The more I think about it, why not combine the new Blake's 7 with the revival of the Star Trek Franchise?

You know where the Fed has gone into the shitter (something about a war without end, bad economic policies and a political coup in view of the entire galaxy) and ended up on the, er, dark side with Blake and the gang have to turn it around?

conformist tank-fetus LOL

@russdanger: Back off, man. Wesley hung out with Robin Lefler (Ashley Judd). In that alone, he outranks most of us.

I have a better idea. Rather than CSI in space, how about The Wire in space. That show was every kind of awesome.

@Jeff-Minor: Wesley Crusher, time-traveling Doctor Who borg savior cum-Q!

@Jesse Mrozowski: Yes, please. Or The Shield in space. Beating up alien scum who rat out their buddies on the street, and creating gangs of Starfleet thugs who cash in on illegal holodeck sims.

@StrangelyBrown: I'd argue that the Nick Locarno -> Tom Paris transformation and the several characters played by Majel Barrett shows that Star Trek is not opposed to breaking this "one actor, one character" rule.

@B: @8:47AM
I love this idea. And I love the idea of retconning the whole traveller episode. I'd almost give my left nut to see Wheaton/Crusher back on a Trek show.

I'm giddy thinking about it.

@moff:

That's OK, We're all here to have some fun. I don't really think that you started life in a cloning-tank...

@MonkeyT:

Did he, *ahem* "score" with Robin Lefler? I seem to remember that he was a complete wanker...

@monkity: I think that might work. He has to have a flaw, something that makes his job as a "higher" being a little harder. Make him a moody artist with unresolved mommy issues. "Can't any one but my mother understand me?!" And make him a bisexual sex addict. That should keep him busy for a while.

@monkity: Damn it! Beat me to it :-D

But yeah, hey, I'd watch it...

I kind of like the idea of crime drama/mystery series...in space, with a few additional thoughts. I'm not sure the Trek universe is the place for it. It might be fun to have the opportunity (as fans, as well as for writers) to re-explore locations, races, etc. But I would worry it would turn into a cameo-fest. I do think it would benefit from having the established franchise behind it; settings that we know, systems we're familiar with, etc. On the whole, however, I think it would end up not different enough from the Trek formula of captain and crew of X vessel explore/defend the galaxy with weekly problems and two or three recurring villains/races we haven't met before. It might be better to set a spacecrime drama in a new universe, not give them a specific ship that can experience temporal distortion/be attacked, and let it focus characters and events.

All that being said: I always had a wicked crush on Wesley and would not be opposed to him having his own show.

@femto: Those examples actually prove my point: the producers apparently wanted to put Nick Locarno on Voyager (which is why they cast Robert Duncan McNeill), and only invented a new character when they realized the retconning would have to be too thick. And Majel Barett was Gene Roddenberry's wife, so of course they're going to find a new role for her that didn't involve heavy aging makeup. If she had been played another, non-voiceover role after Lwaxana Troi, then I would stand corrected.

(For the record, I realize that there have been a few Star Trek guest stars who have played multiple roles -- J.G. Hertzler and Jeffrey Combs come to mind -- but they are typically heavily latexed and as such, don't become nearly as identified with any specific role the way the "human" characters have. On the other hand, just imagine the backlash if some future spinoff show tried to recast Shran or Martok with another actor.)

The main arc of the series could revolve around Wesley searching for the mysterious alien who molested him in the first season of TNG and later kidnapped him when Wes was an angsty teenager.

Although I'd rather see a series set a hundred or so years after DS9, with the Federation having turned into a much more militant society because of the Dominion Wars.

Man, I love the idea. Why are people so hard on Wesley Crusher? I've always liked him.

@ManchuCandidate:
(1:07 in)

+ Watch video

While not The Who, I could imagine this playing during the credits and during any lab scene. I could also see Paul Reubens as his first officer

I sincerely hope they go back to Star Trek's symphonic roots, or at least have a genre or song just as epic and atmospheric(They should enlist J.G. Thirlwell to the new theme HAHA).

@russdanger:

Star Trek = Serious Business

I can't believe nobody else is calling attention to the author's choice of an Oberth-class ship for his Captain Crusher there, unless he just wants to see a next-next-gen reenactment of "The Naked Now."

I'd want Captain Crusher to be the Parker Lewis of Starfleet! Him, his somewhat angsty First Officer and his nerdy Science officer mangling all rules and regulations, outsmarting both Q and Starfleet Command, and being incredibly smug about it. :D

@DoctorVenkman: Crusher hate is as played out as Ewok hate.

@ManchuCandidate:

"Eminence Front," naturally.

This show could be the ultimate redemption of Wil Wheaton. Wil is as talented and blissfully geeked-out as Wesley was insufferable and riot-provoking.

Actually, bag the whole idea. Just get Ashley Judd on my TV on a regular basis. Don't make me beg.

@moff: Amen. Wes was sometimes irritating in the beginning, but I think that's because the writers couldn't handle his backstory approrpiately and therefore fell back on the "boy genius" conventions.

For one, I think it would be excellent, as long as they retconned a few other things, like the particle/energy form of the month.

Is Wil reading io9 yet?

@Carrespondent: It's a put-on.

I think it would be more interesting to explore the Star Trek universe from an entirely different perspective. I thought the original concept of Enterprise was promising in that they could break away from a lot of the lame old plot devices such "transporters", "phasers on stun" and the "Prime Directive". They really had potential to take it in a new direction--make space exploration a more primitive and threatening endeavor. Of course this never really happened.

I would like a series based on the "Boomers"--unofficial space explorers. There ship would beaten up, mashed together assembly of unreliable Earth based and alien technologies. They would be a group of traders/smugglers (think Firefly) with significant character flaws and not necessarily skilled at everything they attempt. You could even throw a Ferengi in there--just never identify him as such (he could be rather evasive about his origins--likely a fugitive from the collective. He might claim he was a mutant Vulcan or failed genetic experiment). They would have real guns that go 'bang' and kill people (think Aliens. The whole thing would be more dystopian than utopian. They would be seeking out contraband alien technologies and try to smuggle them past the Vulcans in order to sell them to unsavory businessmen on Earth to make their fortune.

yeah.. I've spent way to much time thinking about this :-P